LOST Overview

So begins one of the most interesting, fun, criticized, dynamic, and confusing TV shows in history, and I loved every minute of it! As someone who watched LOST from the beginning Pilot episode through to the very end, I don’t have much criticism for the show, only praise and gratitude that I got to experience this show as it was aired, episode by episode.

I recently binge watched LOST on Netflix and I enjoyed the show even more as I was able to watch the show non stop from beginning to end without weeks and months in between episodes and seasons. One of the mainstream criticisms of the show as it aired, was that the writers and producers were making it up as they went a long. That they didn’t have a clear path for the story and main characters already mapped out. That the show was being written and produced willy nilly. While there is some truth to that criticism, in that pretty much every TV show is made up, created, and written as they go along. I haven’t heard of a TV show that is totally fleshed out and each episode is written before they start filming (except for the rumored and unfilmed Star Wars live action TV show that has 50 episodes written, but have been shelved for a later date due to production costs) , but I guess it is possible.

However, one of the benefits of watching the show as they were creating it over the 6 seasons it lasted, is that there was so much fan speculation and discussion of each episode and season as it aired. There were fan forums and web pages dedicated to LOST and the hype was so intoxicating and addicting, especially those first couple of seasons. It was a lot of fun to be in the middle of all that as the story was unfolded and revealed to the audience.

While initially I wanted to do an episode by episode breakdown of the show, I realized a couple of things. First, doing that while watching it on Netflix diminishes the enjoyment of the viewing experience. Most of the episodes end in a cliffhanger that makes you want to watch the next episode right as the episode ends. To stop and write up a review of that episode you just watched isn’t very enticing and I wasn’t motivated to do so. I’d rather just cue up the next episode and get lost in LOST. Second, there are already fan websites and Wikipedia pages dedicated to breakdowns of each episodes and how the episodes, characters, and themes are interrelated and dependent upon each other. You can spend hours going down various rabbit holes dedicated to the show. I didn’t want to replicate that here on this blog.

Then I thought about reviewing each season as a whole and the various themes of the show and discussing my favorite plot points, characters, etc. But then I decided against that for the same reasons as stated previously for not doing the episode by episode breakdown. So I finally just decide to write some thoughts about the show as a whole and about how much I loved it while watching it the first time and the second. I may decide to do a more in depth discussion at a later date, as I plan to watch the show again at some point in the next 3 or 4 years.

This post serves as an prelude that overall show review, as the show review will be lengthy and I don’t want add that length to this post. I will be posting a review of the show as a whole, but then I plan to post thoughts on the characters and storylines as well. So click on the following links and take a journey to the Island.